Press - power relations in the framework of columnists experiences in Turkey, 2002 - 2014

In Turkey the relations between the press and the government especially in the last years came up with different incidents attracting the attention of national and international public opinion. This study aims at analyzing the relations described with their tension between the press and the government through a historical perspective. For that purpose, grounded theory method, which has the characteristics of overlapping in practice, inductive and deductive thought and blending, was preferred. By using grounded theory method which does not stipulate any hypothesis, 19 people, journalists and columnists, were interviewed. The answers that acquired were coded through NVivo 10 qualitative analysis program and also newspaper reports and other comments and opinions were taken into account. Therefore by presenting the processes originating from the theoretical basics, it is aimed to find out every aspect of the press-government relation of the 2000's. Findings of the research show that the focus of the Turkish media has shifted, that the owners of the central media have made the censor into self-censor due to economic reasons, that the journalists and columnists working in the mainstream newspapers are more open to the government intervention, that the mainstream media is the main target of the government intervention and these circumstances have accelerated the journalists and columnists to turn towards the alternative media institutions. Until today many academic researchers have put forward relation models that have been developed in accordance with the position that the press took against the government that has changed according to the different administration forms in different countries. While addressing the current position of the press in Turkey, these models that were developed in the communication literature were used. With the guidance of academic literature this study aims at putting forth the indicative factors for the process of press-government relation.